[madderscience]

the HVH250 is at the core of motor offerings by EV west and probably others. Its a great motor for many vehicles - with a small to midsize vehicle a single HVH250 could be considered a performance motor, and it would be adequate for a vanagon-style camper.

As for 80-90mph in your camper, A single HVH250 could get a vanagon type camper up to that speed, but you would probably want to retain a transmission. Why do you want to go that fast? Unless the plan is drag racing, driving that fast is going to severely impact electric range in a vehicle where range will be a challenge to begin with. The camper you are describing however (3500kg, or 8000lbs) must be a full blown RV. With the right cooling and gearing to let the motor run at higher RPMs the motor could probably do it (I know of a similar sized vehicle that is also being repowered with a remy motor) but its going to perform like a truck.

The HVH250 is a AC motor. You will need an AC controller that is compatible with it. Rinehart and Scott drive are the options I am aware of. I don't think curtis makes an AC controller that is compatible. (They do have an AC controller that is designed to be mated with their AC-50 and other lower voltage AC drive systems)

Not sure where you are located but if you are anyplace where you can get salvaged nissan leaf or chevy volt or similar OEM EV battery packs these are the most battery for your money. The CALB cells are good too but are lower power density (though at 210ah size should not be an issue) but do cost more. You will probably want a ~320v nominal battery, so 100 cells if using LiFePO4. That probably means ~1200-1500lbs of battery at the 210ah size, but that would be a 64kwh battery pack. At 60mph a pack that size might give a vanagon camper about 100 mile range. (At 90mph, 30-40 miles if you are lucky) The vehicle you are describing, maybe 50 miles range at 60mph.

 

[madderscience]

Nimh hybrid batteries aren't designed for deep cycling. the way hybrids get max cycles out of those type of cells is to keep their state of charge in a very narrow range (using only 30-40% of their nameplace capacity). They also have much less energy density than true BEV lithium packs do meaning you would need a much heavier pack. I'd stay with batteries from nissan leaf or chevrolet volt/ampera or similar.

The T4 transporter is a large vehicle but at least it looks fairly aerodynamic. Still, you are going to need a lot of battery as you sumrised. If you could get your hands on 3 30kwh (2016+) nissan leaf packs that would be around 1000kg and 90kwh. A single tesla pack, if you could make it work, would also be a possibility.

Owing to the size and shape of roof yes you could get 600-1000w of solar up there possibly, but consider your vehicle will probably use 600-1000wh/mile, meaning at absolute best conditions the solar could add about a mile of range per hour. If you spend a lot of time parked in sunny areas with no electrical hookups it would do some good and would easily power your "house" loads, but it isn't going to substantially affect your driving range.